Cost of Motor Vehicle Crashes to Employers 2015...distracted driving. About NETS The Network of Employers for Traﬃc Safety 344 Maple Avenue West #357 Vienna, VA 22180 703-755-5350

Cost of Motor Vehicle Crashes to Employers—2015™

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June 1, 2016 Network of Employers for Traffic Safety 2

The Cost of Motor Vehicle Crashes to Employers - 2015™

Acknowledgments The Cost of Motor Vehicle Crashes to Employers was prepared for the Network of Employers for Traffic Safety (NETS) by the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation, funded by a grant to NETS by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. It updates the report The Economic Burden of Traffic Crashes on Employers, published in 2003. Costs in this report that were not part of the 2003 report include the costs of speeding, non-seat belt use and distracted driving.

About NETS The Network of Employers for Traffic Safety 344 Maple Avenue West #357 Vienna, VA 22180 703-755-5350 www.trafficsafety.org

NETS is a 501(c) 3 organization, a partnership between the U.S. Federal government and the private sector. Established in 1989, NETS is dedicated to improving the safety of employees, their families, and members of the communities in which they live and work by preventing traffic crashes that occur on-and- off the job. Board member companies include Abbott, AmeriFleet Transportation, Chubb Group of Insurance Companies, The Coca-Cola Company, Hess Corp., Johnson & Johnson, Liberty Mutual Insurance Group, Monsanto Company, Nationwide Mutual Insurance Group, Shell International Petroleum Company and UPS. In addition, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health serve as federal liaisons to the board of directors. NETS is a member of the United Nations Road Safety Collaboration, which provides guidance to the Decade of Action for Road Safety 2011-2020 global initiative.

Introduction This report is intended for employers who want to understand the cost of crashes incurred by their occupational fleets, in addition to the on- and off-the-job costs of crashes for all their employees and their employees’ dependents. Knowing an occupational fleet’s costs enables management to develop a business case that supports an investment in fleet safety. Knowing the on- and off-the-job crash costs for all employees and their dependents provides employers with justification to invest in employee-wide safe driving programs.

Disclaimer This information is provided as a courtesy by NETS to its members and also to the general public. It is provided “as is,” without any representations or guarantees as to its accuracy, and neither NETS nor any contributing company is liable for the content or use of this information.


Cost of Motor Vehicle Crashes to Employers – 2015


Table of Contents Summary ............................................................................................................................. 5

Methods .......................................................................................................................... 6

Conclusions ..................................................................................................................... 6

Total Costs to Employers by State and Industry. .............................................................. 7

Costs Covered by Employers .......................................................................................... 7

Health fringe benefit costs ......................................................................................... 7

Non-fringe costs ......................................................................................................... 7

Employer Costs Extend Beyond the Company Door ..................................................... 7

Table 1. Annual Number of Fatalities and Injuries of Workers, Their Dependents, and Bystanders Due to Motor Vehicle Crashes – 2013 .............................................. 8

Table 2. Employer's Motor Vehicle Crash Costs (In millions of 2013 dollars) ........... 8

Employer Health Fringe Benefit Spending .................................................................... 8

Table 3. Employer Health-Related Fringe Benefit Costs from Motor Vehicle Crashes (In millions of 2013 dollars) ........................................................................................ 9

Traffic Safety Programs Can Produce Savings ............................................................... 9

Table 4. Costs to Employers per Million Vehicle-Miles of Travel (M VMT) and Costs per On-the-Job Highway Crash and Injury (in 2013 dollars) ..................................... 10

Table 5. Employer's Costs of Safety Belt Non-Use in 2013 (In millions of 2013 dollars) ...................................................................................................................... 10

Table 6. Employer's Costs per Occupant Injured or Killed in a Crash by Restraint Use ............................................................................................................................ 10

Table 7. Employer's Costs of Alcohol-Involved Motor Vehicle Crashes in 2013 (In millions of 2013 dollars) ............................................................................................ 11

Table 8. Employer's Costs of Distracted Driving Crashes in 2013 (In millions of 2013 dollars) ...................................................................................................................... 11

Table 9. Employer's Costs of Speed-Related Motor Vehicle Crashes in 2013 (In millions of 2013 dollars) ............................................................................................ 11

Table 10. Employer's Costs per Nonfatal Injury by Crash Circumstances and Whether On-the-Job (in 2013 dollars) ...................................................................... 11



Employer Costs of Crashes by State ............................................................................ 12

Table 11. Annual Employer Costs of On- and Off-the-Job Motor Vehicle Crash Injuries by Expense Category by State, Excluding Wage-Risk Premiums ................. 13

Table 12. Employer's Costs of On- and Off-the-Job Alcohol-Involved Motor Vehicle Crashes by State, Excluding Wage-Risk Premiums (In millions of 2013 Dollars) ...... 14

Employer Costs of Crashes by Industry ....................................................................... 14

Table 13. Costs of On-the-Job Motor Vehicle Crashes to Employers by Industry (in 2013 dollars) ............................................................................................................. 15

Conclusions ....................................................................................................................... 16

Appendix ........................................................................................................................... 17

Incidence Estimation .................................................................................................... 17

Cost Estimation ............................................................................................................. 18

References ........................................................................................................................ 20



Summary

Employers pay for injuries that occur both on and off the job. In 2013, motor vehicle crashes killed more than 1,600 people and injured 293,000 while they were working. More than half of the injuries forced people to miss work. Overall, on-the-job crash injuries (fatal and non-fatal) amounted to about 7.5 percent of all crash injuries.

Motor vehicle crash injuries on and off the job cost employers $47.4 billion in 2013.

Almost one half of this cost resulted from off-the-job injuries to workers and their dependents. The remainder resulted from on-the-job crashes.

Employer's Motor Vehicle Crash Costs (In millions of 2013 dollars.)

On the job Off the job All

Health Fringe Benefit Costs 5,030 21,770 26,800

Non-Fringe Costs 20,140 500 20,640

TOTAL 25,170 22,270 47,440

Property damage, workplace disruption and liability costs accounted for $20.6 billion of the costs. The remaining $26.8 billion were health-related fringe benefit payments including sick leave, health insurance and insurance covering work losses. The fringe benefit payments were roughly equally split between health care (medical) expenses and wage replacement (e.g., through sick leave and life insurance). The fringe benefit costs of off-the-job crash injuries were $21.8 billion, accounting for 81 percent of the health-related fringe benefit bill.

The employer cost of motor vehicle crashes in which at least one driver was alcohol-impaired was $6 billion in 2013. Injuries to people who were not wearing their safety belts cost employers $4.9 billion; distracted driving cost them $8.2 billion; and speeding cost them $8.4 billion. Crashes that involved two of these risky behaviors are in both totals. Unrestrained crash injuries for on-the-job employees cost employers almost $400 million a year in fringe benefit costs. A larger $3.6 billion employer fringe benefit bill results from crash injuries to unrestrained employees and their benefit-eligible dependents while away from work.

Employer costs of motor vehicle crash injuries vary widely by state and industry. These costs exceed $3.4 billion in each of the nation’s four most populous states—California, Florida, New York and Texas. Costs per employee are highest in the primary metal manufacturing; agriculture, forestry, and fishing; and local and interurban transportation industries. When comparing costs between states and industries, be aware that differences in injury severity, the age of the workforce, regional and local characteristics, and the completeness of reporting play a significant role in the variance.



Prevention is an important way to control health care costs arising from injuries. This report demonstrates that by increasing restraint use and reducing alcohol-impaired driving, speeding and distracted driving, the potential health care savings are large.

This report updates the national estimates of employer costs of crashes presented in NHTSA’s 2003 report The Economic Burden of Traffic Crashes on Employers. It provides motor vehicle injury costs to employers on a national, state-by-state and industry basis.

Methods

The estimates were built from diverse data. Data sources included 2011-2013 Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS); purchased 2013 Insurance Services Office summary data; The Insurance Fact Book, 2015; Highway Statistics 2013; the 2009 National Household Travel Survey (NHTS); the 2011-2013 Censuses of Fatal Occupational Injuries (CFOI) and Surveys of Occupational Injury and Illness (SOII); and Zaloshnja and Miller (2006). Employer crash costs were adjusted to specific states using ratios of state-to-national costs. Medical and composite-item state price adjusters were calculated from the ACCRA Cost of Living Index. A wage adjustment factor was calculated from estimates of personal income per capita by state from the 2013 American Community Survey.

Conclusions

Protecting employees from motor vehicle crash injury can be a profitable investment of time and resources. Traffic safety programs are an alternative to reduce health care expenses to employers without reducing the benefits offered to employees. To the extent that health care reform prompts more employers to offer employees health insurance, the potential savings will be even larger.



What Do Motor Vehicle Crashes Cost?

Total Costs to Employers by State and Industry

This report shows that by preventing motor vehicle crashes, the potential employer savings on sick leave, health care and other fringe benefits are large. It includes motor vehicle injury costs to employers on a national, state-by-state and industry basis. It excludes active duty military personnel. The report updates the national estimates of employer costs of crashes presented in NHTSA’s 2003 report The Economic Burden of Traffic Crashes on Employers.

Costs Covered by Employers

Employer costs resulting from motor vehicle crashes fall into two categories: health fringe benefit costs and non-fringe costs.

Health fringe benefit costs are the costs of fringe benefits paid because of illness and injury of employees and their dependents. They cover contributions to Workers’ Compensation medical and disability insurance, health insurance, sick leave, Social Security disability insurance, life insurance and private disability insurance, as well as insurance administration and overhead.

Non-fringe costs include motor vehicle property damage and liability insurance, crash-related legal expenses and the costs of unreimbursed vehicle damage and replacement. In addition, employers pay taxes to help fund police fire, and ambulance services. Employers also lose productivity when employees suffer injuries preventing them or their coworkers from working at full capacity. Recruiting and training workers to replace fatally injured or permanently disabled employees raises the bill employers pay for injuries.

Employer Costs Extend Beyond the Company Door

Employers pay for injuries that occur to their employees on and off the job and to their dependents. They also pay for harm caused to non-employees involved in work-related crashes (crashes involving a vehicle on employer business, but excluding crashes during commuting). In 2013, motor vehicle crashes killed 1,620 people and injured an estimated 293,000 while they were working. As Table 1 shows, more than half of the injuries forced people to miss work. Overall, on-the-job crash injuries (fatal and non-fatal) amounted to about 7.5 percent of all crash injuries. On-the-job drivers also were involved in 707,000 crashes without injuries. Some on-the-job incidents were not on public roads. This report includes them because countermeasures and corporate safety management systems apply to both on-road and off-road incidents. The Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries (CFOI) also does not differentiate worker pedestrian deaths on and off public roads.



The 2013 economic costs of U.S. highway crashes, excluding the cost imposed on society by travel delays and wage-risk premiums, was $234 billion (in 2013 dollars). Employers paid 20 percent of these costs. They shared the costs of highway crashes with government, private passenger vehicle insurers and individual crash victims (Blincoe et al., 2015, inflated to 2013 dollars and adjusted for changes from 2010 in fatal and injury crash counts).

Table 1. Annual Number of Fatalities and Injuries of Workers, Their Dependents and Bystanders Resulting from Motor Vehicle Crashes – 2013*

INJURIES

Bystander

in Work-Related Other

On the job* At-Fault Crash** Off the job All

Fatal 1,620 2,994 23,696 28,310

Nonfatal 293,000 170,000 2,779,000 3,242,000

Lost Work Days 155,000 90,000 1,473,000 1,718,000

No Lost Work Days 138,000 80,000 1,306,000 1,524,000

Total 294,620 172,994 2,802,696 3,270,310

* Excludes 684,200 people injured in non-work crashes who were not workers or their dependents. Includes 50,200 on-the-job crash injuries and 277 deaths that did not occur on public roads such as the driver of a forklift that rolled over in a warehouse or a worker hit by a refuse truck at a landfill. Excludes off-road crashes involving active-duty military personnel. ** For example, a pedestrian or recreational driver hit by a heavy truck

Including off-road crashes, motor vehicle crashes on and off the job cost employers $47.4 billion in 2013. Of that, $26.8 billion was comprised of fringe benefit costs and $20.6 billion of non-fringe costs (Table 2). Almost half of the costs resulted from off-the-job injuries to workers and their dependents. Crashes involving property damage only (i.e., with no one injured or killed) accounted for $3 billion of the costs.

Table 2. Employer's Motor Vehicle Crash Costs (in millions of 2013 dollars)

On-the-job Off-the-job All

Health Fringe Benefit Costs 5,030 21,770 26,800

Non-Fringe Costs 20,140 * 500 20,640

TOTAL 25,170 22,270 47,440

* Includes $3 billion for crashes involving property damage only.

Employer Health Fringe Benefit Spending

Motor vehicle crashes imposed a $26.8 billion health fringe benefit bill on employers (Table 3). The fringe benefit payments were roughly equally split between health care (medical) expenses and wage replacement (e.g., through sick leave and life insurance).

Table 3 illustrates the importance of off-the-job injuries to employers interested in achieving health-related cost savings. Off-the-job crash injuries cost $21.8 billion, or 81



percent of motor vehicle crash health-related fringe benefit costs. Motor vehicle crashes accounted for 4 percent of employer health-related fringe benefit costs.

Traffic Safety Programs Can Produce Savings

Employer costs per on-the-job crash, per on-the-job crash injury and per million vehicle-miles of travel enable employers to estimate their injury burden and the potential savings of traffic safety programs. These unit costs are averages calculated from total costs and actual incidence. Employers can estimate their cost burden by multiplying the costs in Table 4 by their total crashes, crash injuries or millions of vehicle-miles of travel. For example, the estimated cost of on-the-job crashes for a company that had 1000 such crashes would be 1000 x $24,057 = $24,057,000.

On-the-job highway crashes cost employers $24,000 per crash, $45,000 per million vehicle-miles of travel (M VMT) and $68,000 per injury. The Network of Employers for Traffic Safety (NETS) reports that safety elements effective in reducing losses associated with motor vehicle crashes include top-level management commitment to traffic safety programs, mandatory safety restraint policies, alcohol and drug non-use policies, Employee Assistance Programs and safety outreach that extends safety efforts beyond the company door. NETS’ Comprehensive Guide to Road Safety™ is available free of charge as a download at www.trafficsafety.org. The Guide has global applicability and is for employers of large or small fleets of all vehicle types with new, developing or advanced road safety programs.

Table 3. Employer Health-Related Fringe Benefit Costs from Motor Vehicle Crashes (in millions of 2013 dollars)

Crash Injuries

On the job Off the job All

Workers' Compensation 3,430 0 3,430

Medical 1,790 0 1,790

Disability 1,640 0 1,640

Health Insurance 110 10,190 10,300

Disability Insurance 0 420 420

Life Insurance 80 1,110 1,190

Insurance Administration 490 1,530 2,020

Insurance Overhead 220 1,470 1,690

Social Security 130 1,280 1,410

Sick Leave 570 5,770 6,340

TOTAL 5,030 21,770 26,800




Table 4. Costs to Employers per Million Vehicle-Miles of Travel (M VMT) and Costs per On-the-Job Highway Crash and Injury (in 2013 dollars)

Per Per Per PDO

Per Per Per

Nonfatal

M VMT Crash* Crash Injury** Fatality Injury

Health Fringe Benefit Costs 8,338 4,418 0 17,045 501,131 14,369

Other Direct Costs 18,187 7,926 4,252 16,841 132,238 16,203

Liability for Losses by Others 18,684 11,713 1,638 34,430 38,145 34,409

TOTAL 45,210 24,057 5,890 68,316 671,514 64,981

*Includes property damage only, injury, and fatal crashes. **Includes both fatal and nonfatal injuries.

Tables 5 and 6 show what restraint non-use cost employers. Restraint non-use by on-the-job employees cost employers $0.9 billion in 2013. A larger $4.0 billion bill resulted from restraint non-use by employees and their benefit-eligible dependents while away from work. Costs per employee injured in a crash on the job averaged $48,000 unrestrained, far exceeding the $25,000 cost if restrained. The comparable figures for crashes off the job – where employers are not liable for costs incurred by people injured by their employees or for most permanent disability of their employees -- are much lower: $7,200 versus $4,800.

Table 5. Employer's Costs of Safety Belt Non-Use in 2013 (In millions of 2013 dollars)

Highway Crash


Health Fringe Benefit Costs 412 3,586 3,998

Non-Fringe Costs 503 425 928

TOTAL 915 4,011 4,926

Table 6. Employer's Costs per Occupant Injured or Killed in a Crash by Restraint Use (In millions of 2013 dollars)

On-the-job Off-the-job

Unrestrained Restrained Unrestrained Restrained

Health Fringe Benefit Costs 21,550 13,040 6,040 3,970

Non-Fringe Costs 26,290 11,540 1,180 800

TOTAL 47,840 24,580 7,220 4,770

In 2013, only 1.5% of alcohol-involved drivers in fatal crashes were on the job. The employer cost of motor vehicle crashes with an alcohol-impaired employee or dependent driving was $6.0 billion (Table 7). Out of this, $5.0 billion came from off-the-job alcohol involvement.



Table 7. Employer's Costs of Alcohol-Involved Motor Vehicle Crashes in 2013 (In millions of 2013 dollars)

Highway Crash



Non-Fringe Costs 780 1,023 1,803

TOTAL 1,041 4,969 6,010

The employer cost of distracted driver crashes was $8.2 billion in 2013 (Table 8). Almost half of the costs resulted from crashes involving employees and their benefit-eligible dependents while away from work.

Table 8. Employer's Costs of Distracted Driving Crashes in 2013 (In millions of 2013 dollars)

Highway Crash




TOTAL 4,362 3,851 8,213

Speed-related crashes cost employers $8.4 billion in 2013 (Table 9). Most costs resulted from off-the-job crashes.

Table 9. Employer's Costs of Speed-Related Motor Vehicle Crashes in 2013 (In millions of 2013 dollars)

Highway Crash




TOTAL 3,437 4,930 8,367

These risk behaviors affected the frequency and severity of crashes. Table 10 shows average employer costs per nonfatal crash injury on and off the job by behavior. The costs were highest for people in alcohol-related crashes and for unbelted occupants. The cost of a traffic fatality was the same regardless of whether one of these risk factors caused the crash, as was the cost of a property damage only crash.

Table 10. Employer's Costs per Nonfatal Injury by Crash Circumstances and Whether On-the-Job (in 2013 dollars)

Highway Crash

On-the -job Off-the-job

Any Person Injured 73,796 4,932 Any Occupant 71,686 4,498 Unbelted 79,229 6,055 Belted 70,205 4,194 In Distracted Driving Crash 72,442 4,641 In Speed-Related Crash 73,914 5,303 In Alcohol-Related Crash 93,464 11,759



Employer Costs of Crashes by State

Table 11 details employer costs of motor vehicle crash injuries, on- and off-the-job, by state. Costs exceeded $3.4 billion in each of the nation’s four most populous states—California, Florida, New York, and Texas.

Costs per employee varied widely by state. They were highest in Louisiana, Montana, and West Virginia and lowest in Colorado, Iowa, Minnesota, Washington, and Wyoming. Differences in injury severity, age of workforce, regional and local characteristics, and completeness of reporting caused the variance. Critically, the methods for calculating state costs (documented in the Appendix) ignore differences in non-fatal injury severity between states. This weakness probably produces cost estimates that are too low in rural states relative to urban states because urban states typically have lower average speeds and consequently less severe injuries.

Differences in labor force participation rates and family size between states could cause employer costs per employee to vary even if safety levels and prices were equal. Cost differences between states may reflect price and income variations more than differences in safety. Finally, differences between states may result from differing completeness of reporting of occupational or crash injuries rather than actual differences in injury rates.

Table 12 provides estimates of employer costs of alcohol-involved injuries by state. These estimates account for regional differences in alcohol-impaired driving. They were obtained by assuming that the ratio between employers’ costs of alcohol use and fatalities involving Blood Alcohol Levels at or above .08 remain the same across the states.



Table 11. Annual Employer Costs of On- and Off-the-Job Motor Vehicle Crash Injuries by Expense Category by State*

(In Millions of 2013 Dollars except that costs per employee are in 2013 Dollars)

EXPENSE

CATEGORY EXPENSE

CATEGORY

Health Non Per Health Non Per

STATE Fringes Fringe TOTAL Employee STATE Fringes Fringe TOTAL Employee

USA 26,822 17,634 44,456 310 MS 258 160 418 360

AK 77 49 126 370 MT 187 116 303 620

AL 383 252 635 320 NC 1,072 675 1,747 400

AR 258 168 426 350 ND 75 43 118 300

AZ 517 332 849 310 NE 157 100 257 260

CA 2,817 1,955 4,772 280 NH 122 79 201 290

CO 282 178 460 180 NJ 999 705 1,704 410

CT 407 281 688 400 NM 191 121 312 360

DC 74 58 132 390 NV 270 180 450 360

DE 80 53 133 320 NY 2,151 1,542 3,693 410

FL 2,072 1,368 3,440 390 OH 973 636 1,609 300

GA 1,088 692 1,780 410 OK 341 212 553 320

HI 118 90 208 340 OR 377 246 623 350

IA 151 93 244 150 PA 874 588 1,462 240

ID 142 83 225 310 RI 77 51 128 250

IL 867 559 1,426 240 SC 459 290 749 370

IN 453 287 740 250 SD 59 38 97 230

KS 195 120 315 220 TN 419 268 687 240

KY 410 264 674 360 TX 2,097 1,332 3,429 290

LA 669 436 1,105 560 UT 207 134 341 250

MA 493 334 827 260 VA 655 420 1,075 270

MD 473 342 815 280 VT 71 48 119 350

ME 136 88 224 340 WA 378 236 614 190

MI 670 428 1,098 260 WI 413 255 668 230

MN 321 206 527 190 WV 232 150 382 510

MO 505 320 825 290 WY 27 15 42 140

*Excludes $3,000 million for crashes involving property damage only.



Table 12. Employer's Costs of On- and Off-the-Job Alcohol-Involved Motor Vehicle Crashes by State (In millions of 2013 dollars)

STATE TOTAL COST STATE TOTAL COST

USA 6,010 Missouri 140

Alabama 133 Montana 54

Alaska 11 Nebraska 35

Arizona 121 Nevada 43

Arkansas 63 New Hampshire 32

California 584 New Jersey 102

Colorado 90 New Mexico 51

Connecticut 87 New York 270

Delaware 23 North Carolina 211

District of Columbia 5 North Dakota 42

Florida 389 Ohio 153

Georgia 163 Oklahoma 96

Hawaii 22 Oregon 66

Idaho 36 Pennsylvania 222

Illinois 199 Rhode Island 16

Indiana 106 South Carolina 181

Iowa 61 South Dakota 24

Kansas 60 Tennessee 149

Kentucky 88 Texas 778

Louisiana 131 Utah 20

Maine 26 Vermont 11

Maryland 92 Virginia 158

Massachusetts 87 Washington 99

Michigan 141 West Virginia 48

Minnesota 60 Wisconsin 109

Mississippi 105 Wyoming 16

Employer Costs of Crashes by Industry

Employer costs of on-the-job motor vehicle crashes by industry are shown in Table 13. As expected, costs per employee are higher for industries where motor vehicles are used intensively and exposure to risk is greater. Costs per employee are highest in the primary metal manufacturing; agriculture, forestry, and fishing; and local & interurban transportation industries. Costs were assigned by vehicle type involved in the crash. Heavier vehicles have smaller fatality costs but higher property damage costs. The SOII obtained reports on less than 25% of survivors of on-the-road occupational crashes with work loss. We used the reported cases to infer the distribution of unreported cases. Thus, cost variations between industries should be compared cautiously. They may result from differing completeness of reporting.



Table 13. Costs of On-the-Job Motor Vehicle Crashes to Employers by Industry (in 2013 dollars)

Industry Health Fringe Non-Fringe Total Cost/ Employee

Agriculture, Forestry & Fishing 283,211,395 845,827,621 1,129,039,016 2,794

Mining 262,987,141 785,431,829 1,048,418,970 1,299

Metal Mining 3,552,321 12,720,981 16,273,302 360

Coal Mining 10,112,126 30,197,897 40,310,023 504

Oil & Gas Extraction 5,776,305 17,247,755 23,024,060 120

Nonmetallic Minerals 5,776,305 17,247,755 23,024,060 255

Construction 424,821,441 1,403,327,949 1,828,149,390 315

Gen'l Building Contractors 44,960,373 138,784,729 183,745,102 146

Heavy Construction 133,548,486 426,956,473 560,504,959 632

Special Trades Contractors 143,053,366 427,240,074 570,293,440 156

Manufacturing 266,070,088 939,530,575 1,205,600,663 100

Food & Kindred Products 60,593,909 212,706,495 273,300,404 187

Textile Mill Products 3,146,811 12,549,357 15,696,168 68

Lumber & Wood Products 15,165,755 45,295,815 60,461,570 173

Printing & Publishing 98,051,646 387,961,358 486,013,004 1,065

Chemicals & Allied Products 32,212,915 103,066,418 135,279,333 171

Primary Metal Industries 1,102,207,948 4,391,752,969 5,493,960,917 13,894

Fabricated Metal Products 18,421,025 67,674,395 86,095,420 60

Industrial Machinery & Equip. 13,819,362 50,770,122 64,589,484 58

Transportation Equipment 22,447,962 88,074,600 110,522,562 73

Transportation & Public Utilities 1,332,528,182 4,215,811,272 5,548,339,454 986

Local & Interurban Trans. 218,554,418 825,838,583 1,044,393,001 2,272

Trucking & Warehousing 699,222,210 2,222,889,134 2,922,111,344 1,408

Water Transportation 4,195,748 16,732,476 20,928,224 316

Transportation by Air 97,066,264 385,290,563 482,356,827 1,064

Communications 70,659,509 273,105,424 343,764,933 305

Electric, Gas & Sanitary Serv. 24,240,438 85,094,058 109,334,496 201

Wholesale Trade 523,824,665 1,942,846,899 2,466,671,564 433

Retail Trade 458,496,348 1,743,093,348 2,201,589,696 145

General Merchandise Stores 31,276,986 117,985,554 149,262,540 47

Food Stores 44,625,584 176,034,781 220,660,365 76

Automotive Dealers 188,466,253 730,791,226 919,257,479 520

Apparel & Accessory Stores 5,244,685 20,915,595 26,160,280 18

Furniture & Home Furnishings 6,056,518 21,259,189 27,315,707 61

Eating & Drinking Places 154,157,735 600,305,109 754,462,844 74

Finance, Insurance & Real Estate 191,222,523 739,436,120 930,658,643 123

Services 760,373,205 2,686,509,768 3,446,882,973 51

Hotels 23,665,710 88,589,990 112,255,700 61

Personal services 25,932,395 93,288,500 119,220,895 89

Business Services 407,188,072 1,508,091,390 1,915,279,462 242

Automotive Repair 38,383,053 128,471,419 166,854,472 199

Amusement & Recreation Serv. 49,444,520 170,595,963 220,040,483 154

Health Services 410,762,857 1,610,613,291 2,021,376,148 131

Legal Services 16,797,361 66,987,207 83,784,568 74

Educational Services 47,230,903 188,354,961 235,585,864 19

Social Services 222,855,957 880,058,800 1,102,914,757 334

Membership Organizations 53,150,834 194,599,645 247,750,479 85

Engineering & Management 62,673,928 239,812,271 302,486,199 64

Government 518,586,660 1,832,245,161 2,350,831,821 106

Federal Government 114,221,403 403,563,817 517,785,220 189

State Government 76,356,670 269,779,834 346,136,504 67

Local Government 327,694,984 1,157,795,574 1,485,490,558 104

TOTAL 5,022,121,648 17,134,060,542 22,156,182,190 167

Note: based on CFOI and SOII counts by industry using North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) industry categories.



Conclusions

Including insurance expenses, employer health care (medical) spending for motor vehicle crashes was nearly $14 billion in 2013. Another $13 billion was spent on sick leave and life and disability insurance for crash victims. Traffic safety programs are an alternative to reduce these costs without reducing the benefits offered to employees.

Protecting employees from motor vehicle crash injury can be a profitable investment of time and resources. Alcohol-impaired driving crashes cost employers $6.0 billion annually and injuries to unrestrained occupants cost employers $4.9 billion. Employer costs of distracted driving and speed-related crashes are even higher at $8.2 billion and $8.4 billion. Crashes that involve two of these risky behaviors are in both totals.

Developing a proactive traffic safety program is one of the best ways to control costs from workplace vehicle crashes. Resources for such a program can be found in the Network of Employers for Traffics Safety’s (NETS’) Comprehensive Guide to Road Safety™. It is also recommended the reader see NETS’ Drive Safely Work Week™ 2010-2015 Campaigns. These resources are available for download at no cost from NETS’ website, www.trafficsafety.org. In addition, later this year NETS will publish NETS’ Guide to Defensive Driver Training™ and NETS’ Recommended Road Safety Best Practices™. The large employer costs due to off-the-job crashes suggest that employers might profit by initiating “work-life” programs that use workers as conduits for getting traffic safety information to family and community. It also suggests that employers profit from passage of proven measures like graduated licensing for youth, booster seat, bicycle helmet, and primary safety belt laws, plus enforcement efforts like intensive sobriety checkpoints and reducing service to over-the-limit and underage drinkers.




Appendix

Incidence Estimation

In general, the computations used the peer-reviewed methods in Zaloshnja and Miller (2006). Both fatal and non-fatal motor vehicle crash injuries were estimated by state and industry. The state fatality estimation used two data sets: NHTSA’s 2011-2013 FARS and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS’) 2011-2013 Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries (CFOI), Table A-2.

Occupational crash fatalities by state are the average annual FARS count for 2011-2013 adjusted upward to the 2013 Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries total including deaths not on public roads. Off-the-job motor vehicle-related fatalities were computed by subtracting the state occupational highway fatality estimates from the 2013 FARS state totals under age 65. The calculations assumed that the number of people over age 65 equals the number of people who are not workers or their dependents.

The number of non-fatal occupational motor vehicle injuries was computed using: NHTSA’s 2013 General Estimates System (GES) injury counts by vehicle type; purchased 2013 Insurance Services Office summary data; The Insurance Fact Book, 2015 (Insurance Information Institute, 2015); 2010 police-reported state non-fatal injury counts (Blincoe et al, 2015 and online), and the 2013 CFOI ratio of crash deaths on versus off public roads;

The number of injured on-the-job motor vehicle crash survivors by state was computed in four stages. The computation started from national and state-by-state estimates of crash injury victims from Blincoe et al. (2015). The estimates were adjusted upward by the ratio from GES of people injured in police-reported crashes in 2013 versus 2010. From these injury counts and FARS fatality counts, the number of injured crash survivors per crash fatality by state was computed. Finally, that ratio was multiplied by the CFOI/FARS estimates of on-the-job motor vehicle fatalities by state. (This calculation assumes that the CFOI percentage of crash fatalities and injuries that occur on public roads, 81%, does not vary between states.)

To distribute the injured survivors of on-the-job crashes by industry, the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Survey of Occupational Injury and Illness (SOII) distribution of survivors of lost-workday occupational injuries by two-digit North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code was used. The SOII data by source (e.g., motor vehicle) exclude medically treated survivors without workdays lost, whom the 1987-1992 National Health Interview Survey estimated were 47% of the total (Zaloshnja and Miller, 2006). They also do not cover all workers. Notably, they exclude self-employed truck and taxi drivers. Beyond its under-coverage problem, the SOII appears to under-count motor vehicle crash injuries. It records only 57,000 of the estimated 150,000 injured survivors who lost days from work due to on-the-job crashes.



Incidence of commercial vehicle crashes used to calculate cost per crash was estimated from aggregated data purchased from the Insurance Services Office (ISO). Work-related vehicle miles traveled were estimated from two sources. Highway Statistics provided 2013 estimates of miles traveled by commercial trucks, buses, and other heavy vehicles. The Federal Highway Administration’s 2009 National Household Travel Survey (U.S. Department of Transportation, 2013) provided estimated vehicle miles of on-the-job use of light vehicles on daily and long-distance trips

Cost Estimation

Medical, productivity, emergency services, property damage, legal, and non-liability insurance claims processing costs came from Blincoe et al. (2015). These costs were inflated from 2010 to 2013 dollars using the employment cost index and consumer price index — all items and medical care. Employer crash costs were adjusted to specific states using ratios of state to national costs. The medical and composite state price adjusters were aggregated to the state level from ACCRA Cost of Living Index values for 2014 from participating metropolitan areas. The state wage adjusters and employment by state used in computing costs per employee in Table 10 came from Bureau of Labor Statistics compilations of 2013-2014 Current Population Survey data. Future costs were converted to present value using a 3% discount rate. The calculations assume that costs per nonfatal motor vehicle injury on and off public roads are equal. Costs related to crash-caused traffic delays of commercial vehicles or employees not involved in crashes were excluded from the cost estimates.

Total employer health fringe benefit costs were computed following the methods in Miller (1992) and Zaloshnja and Miller (2006). Sources of data were as follows: sick leave, health and other insurance, and Workers’ Compensation per hour worked from the National Compensation Survey (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2015), Sengupta et al. (2014), and American Council of Life Insurance (2015). The tax payments shown assume, perhaps optimistically, that police, fire, and emergency medical services would require less vehicles and staffing if crashes were eliminated. Liability payments per on-the-job crash were estimated from the Insurance Services Office data, rectified to match the $11.3 billion total commercial liability claims costs for 2013 (Insurance Information Institute, 2015)

Prior NETS reports on cost of crashes included wage-risk premiums which measure the extra wages workers demand when accepting jobs with high risks of death in road crashes or other circumstances. This concept was abstract and the costs were not linked to individual crashes. Therefore those costs were dropped from the current report except to the extent they affect liability insurance payments.

Employer costs of speed-related, distracted driving, and alcohol-involved motor vehicle crashes were estimated by applying payer estimates by cost category to incidence and cost information by injury severity in Blincoe et al. (2015), along with 2013 data from FARS encyclopedia online tabulation. A similar approach was taken on restraint nonuse,



except that the incidence calculations also used NHTSA estimates of persons saved by belts. The percentage of each type of crash that was on-the-job came from 2013 FARS encyclopedia data. Employer costs of alcohol-involved injuries by state (Table 12) were allocated in proportion to alcohol-involved fatalities. This procedure assumed the percentage of impaired driving that was on the job did not vary between states.

The number of employees and crash fatality and injury risks by industry came from the 2011-2013 CFOI and SOII.



References

American Council of Life Insurance. 2014 Life Insurers Fact Book, Washington, DC, 2015.

Council for Community and Economic Research. ACCRA Cost of Living Index, 1st-4th Quarters., 2013, Arlington, Virginia, 2013.

Blincoe, Lawrence J., Miller, T.R., Zaloshnja, E., Lawrence, B.A. The Economic and Societal Impact of Motor Vehicle Crashes, 2010 (Revised), Washington DC: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, May 2015.

Bureau of Labor Statistics. Employee Benefits in the United States – March 2013, Press Release, Washington DC: BLS, July 2013.

Bureau of Labor Statistics. Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries 2013. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Labor. URL: http://www.bls.gov/iif/oshwc/cfoi/cftb0278.pdf (accessed August 2015).

Bureau of Labor Statistics. Case and demographic characteristics for work-related injuries and illnesses involving days away from work, 2013. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Labor. URL: http://www.bls.gov/iif/oshwc/osh/case/ostb3985.pdf (accessed August 2015).

Council of Economic Advisors. Economic Report of the President, Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2010.

Federal Highway Administration. Highway Statistics 2013, https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policyinformation/statistics/2013/pdf/vm1.pdf (accessed August 2015).

Federal Highway Administration. 2009 National Household Travel Survey online analysis tool (accessed June 2015).

Insurance Information Institute. The Insurance Fact Book 2015, New York City, 2015.

Miller, Ted R. The Cost of Injuries to Employers: A NETS Compendium, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Grant R49/CCR303675-02, 1992.

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Traffic Safety Facts, 2013: A Compilation of Motor Vehicle Crash Data from the Fatal Accident Reporting System and the General Estimates System, 2014.

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The Economic Burden of Traffic Crashes on Employers, 2003.



Network of Employers for Traffic Safety. NETS’ Comprehensive Guide to Road Safety, 2014.

Sengupta, I., Balwin, M., Reno, V. Workers’ Compensation: Benefits, Coverage, and Costs, 2012. Washington DC: National Academy of Social Insurance, 2014.

U.S. Department of Transportation, Bureau of Transportation Statistics, NHTS 2009 Highlights Report, BTS03-05, available at http://www.bts.gov/publications/ highlights_of_the_2001_national_household_travel_survey/pdf/entire.pdf , 2013.

Zaloshnja, E., Miller, T.R. The Employer Costs of Motor Vehicle Crashes, International Journal of Injury Control and Safety Promotion, 13:3, 145-150, 2006.

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